I am generally ashamed to walk out in new clothes. And why am I ashamed? Is it because I don't want to embarrass the others who don't have new things? Or perhaps because a new coat makes you stand out, and you seem to be clothes and nothing else.

But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem.

As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile.

People's talk and the stories they tell have been engraved on my heart, and some of them have flown into my pen.

After all my possessions had been burned, God gave me the wisdom to return to Jerusalem.

Our sages of blessed memory have said that we must not enjoy any pleasure in this world without reciting a blessing. If we eat any food, or drink any beverage, we must recite a blessing over them before and after. If we breathe the scent of goodly grass, the fragrance of spices, the aroma of good fruits, we pronounce a blessing over the pleasure. The same applies to pleasures of the sight. And the same applies to pleasures of the ear.

At the age of nineteen and a half, I went to the Land of Israel to till its soil and live by the labour of my hands. As I did not find work, I sought my livelihood elsewhere.